Additional PAS modes, supporting cadence control so that you can have the PAS output power or throttle voltages vary with your pedal cadence. There is even a PAS mode for electric assist rowbikes with reciprocating PAS sensors.

The ability to automatically return to the main display after a given time and have the Aux change pop-up display just in the custom views tab.

An increase in the output data logging frequency to 10Hz for even better dynamic analysis of vehicle performance

Pre-loaded settings for all the common torque sensors offered by Grin.

Ability to copy all settings one set of presets from another.

A switch to watt-hours rather than amp-hours as the primary battery lifetime usage, for a more universal comparison of total energy expenditure.

The companion software setup utility has also gone through numerous improvements with the 1.53 release. You can now upgrade your CA from a 3.0 to 3.1 firmware and it will preserve almost all of your settings and usage statistics, so there's no need to record and re-enter all your values. There are detailed tooltips over each of the parameters to help you understand their functions, and a comprehensive help menu as well. And to top it off, there is now a single button you can click to fetch the latest firmware from our servers, making any future update process seamless as well.

The most recent firmware build is CA3.1Beta21, and well be giving it 1 week of wider beta testing before we make this the final release CA3.10 version. If you are keen to try this and upgrade from a CA3.0 device but don't have the necessary cables, we have both the USB->TTL programming cable as well as the handy up-down digi-aux buttons available from Amazon.com for easy US shipping.

We'd like once again to thank endless-sphere user Teklektik for his tireless efforts at instilling structure and discipline in the Cycle Analyst development and getting the firmware to deliver on our original vision, and to our software team and co-op students who produced the matching CA Setup Utility suite.

Next up on the CA3 front: Android app support, updated documentation, and more video tutorials!

January 6, 2018 10:29:54 PM PST

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, the Sun Trip is an annual competition run by some (obviously crazy) Frenchmen that challenges people to tour ebikes across great distances, with solar power as their only allowable charging source. It started off in 2013 with a 7500km ride from France to Kazakhstan, and has run most years since then with with trips of varying length and upwards of 30-40 participants. What makes 2018 ride special is that it will be the the most epic challenge yet, covering a full 12,000 km from Lyon, France, to Canton, China.

We've helped out many teams build solar ebike vehicles for Sun Trips in the past and have always had great admiration for this event from across the water. But now it time to join in the fray!

2018 marks the 10 year anniversary of Justin's first cross-Canada ebike tour and he's itching for another adventure, and what could better fit the bill. Grin will be participating in this amazing ride, both as a competitor on the ground and as a formal sponsor helping with their technical logging requirements. Many of the announcements and product roll-outs you see in the coming months will relate in some way to this Sun Trip.

And if you're just reading about it for the first time now thinking wow, I'd love to do that, the event registration formally closed in December. However, the organizers are keen to see more participation from North America, so if you have the right kind of aptitude and attitude to pull off building and riding a solar ebike on a 12000km trip like this, send the Sun Trip people your plea, they'll maybe make an exception :-).

December 20, 2017 12:18:00 PM PST

More good Holiday news, not quite in the form of "free" hubs but cassette freehubs at least. We've now got two new rear motor options available that shed the threaded freewheel for a cassette freehub system, allowing you to take full advantage of modern drivechain components and the increasingly common 9, 10, and 11 speed gearsets.

The first of these is the tiny Bafang G310 geared motor. This is a small lower power hub like the G01 but with an impressive 11:1 internal gear reduction giving an even better torque to weight ratio. And best of all it uses a spiral sun gear that makes an almost completely silent and silky smooth motor when paired with our sinewave Grinfineon controller. Other features include a side cable exit, easy disassembly for service, integral anti-rotation washers, and excellent waterproofing.

The second freehub motor is a rear direct drive hub from MXUS. This one has a 30mm wide stator, so slighly more powerful than the 9C+ and a bit less powerful than the Crysatlyte 'H'. It has the same Grin customizations that you'd expect, with side axle cable exit, 0.35mm laminations for low rolling drag, internal temperature sensor, and fully sealed side plates with a statorade injection port.

Both motors are available in fast and standard winding speeds, fit inside standard 135mm dropout spacings, have disk brake compatibility, and are fully modeled on our simulator (See the G310's and MX3005/6). The MXUS motor also been thermally modeled with Statorade and Hubsinks options too.

We've got a limited number of each motor on hand now and we expect our large sea freight orders to be here in mid-January once these sell out.

December 17, 2017 11:21:45 PM PST

It's end of year housecleaning time, and this can mean some excellent holiday savings for you!

Cargo Ebike Sale:

We gave a solid go at offering turn-key cargo ebikes from our new Powell St. shop space this past year, but in the end came to the realization that our resources are best kept focus on conversion kits and the development of new Grin products. So we wrapping that up and clearing out our remaining inventory of eZee Expedir cargo ebikes at a stunning 40% discount.

These ebikes were a good value at their normal price, with a large capacity 19Ah battery pack, high torque eZee motor drive, Magura hydraulic brakes, and other high-end components, and with the additional 40% off they are a steal. It's like buying a kit and getting the bike for free. We've got limited numbers left in red, green, and black colours in time to fit under the Christmas tree. If you've been on the fence about getting a cargo ebike for you or your family, this could be an opportunity not to miss.

Direct Drive Motors Too

We're also clearing out all of our remaining 9C+ 2706 and 2705 rear motors at a 40% discount to make room for new motor series that uses cassette freehubs rather than screw-on freewheels. These have the same low-drag 0.35mm laminations and statorade compatibility that you expect from Grin's offering, but as with all the nine continent motors the construction quality is very much "made for China" grade. They're great value if you want an awesome motor performance but aren't fussy about fitment details.

December 9, 2017 4:46:23 AM PST

There are a number of information pages that we were working on this year but only now with the relative calm of the winter season have we had the time to wrap them up. So for your fireside reading pleasure, we offer you

Grin's Ebike Connector Guide: A summary of the various standard connector types encountered in ebike conversions and our take on them from the DIY user perspective. For those dizzied by the wide assortment of connectors out there hopefully this page can help you make sense of some of it.

Our take on the Merits of Hub Motors: In our travels this summer to meet with other ebike businesses, one recurring theme was that most of them felt hub motors have been subject to a lot of misleading marketing in recent years by mid-drive companies. We've played with many mid-drives as well since our founding days, and while they have a few advantages in some situations our feeling has always been that hub motors are a better overall solution for the needs of 80-90% of ebike users. Even with the popular proliferation of BBSXX type drives, that viewpoint hasn't changed at all. To see why, read here.

How many watts is that motor?: This is a question that makes Justin's blood boil a little. If there is one thing that is most often misunderstood about ebike technology it's the topic of motor power ratings. Did you know that the european Bosch ebikes will draw 700-800 watts of power form the battery even though they are, you know, supposedly 250 watt systems? It's true. We've always avoided giving specific power ratings on our motors because the number you choose is rather arbitrary, and this more technical article explains why.

From the past: We also found the draft documents from an old article we wrote in 2010 on the role of the DIY ebike scene at that point, and we thought would be nice to dust off and make available online again.

November 17, 2017 5:14:29 PM PST

We've got two new Grin items hot off our milling machine that should help overcome difficulties in electric conversions.

The Handle Bob

The first idea actually comes courtesy of our customer Bob. Bob you see has a Grin All-Axle bike conversion and ran into the familiar situation of having handlebars that didn't lend themselves to sliding on a throttle. This happens all the time with curved drop bars, oversized handlebar tubing and whatnot. His solution with a piece of 22mm OD tube cut and drilled to secure at right angles with a pair of cable ties was so elegant and simple that we had to make this into a product.

So in his honor we introduce the Handle Bob, allowing you to easily attach a small bobbin to handebars on which you can affix a thumb throttle, CA aux input, headlight button or other small device without needing to remove your grips or anything else. It's the simplest and lowest tech product that we've ever manufactured in our little machine shop, but one that just might have a big impact for many builds.

The Bottle Bob

The 2nd item helps when installing downtube and waterbottle batteries on bike frames that don't have properly located waterbottle braze-ons. We're calling these our Bottle Bobs, and they let you add a solid M5 threaded attachment point anywhere on your bike tubing with the security of a stainless steel hoseclamp.

In fact, these attachments are stronger and more secure than many of the riv-nut frame eyelets which can occasionally tear out of the frame tubing with heavy batteries, and allow you the security of having 3 or 4 attachment points to the battery base plate rather than just the 2 when you use the frame's bottle mounts.

And of course, you can also use them to attach more waterbottle cages to your bike!

Both the Handle Bobs and Bottle Bobs are already available from our store, manufactured at Grin from machined aluminum and black anodized for a lasting sharp look.

November 7, 2017 2:53:19 AM PST

At the VEVA electric vehicle show this summer we showed up with two electrified penny farthing bicycles, thinking that we could stage electric high-wheeler races around the mini test track. The racing didn't happen but the fun of riding these around Vancouver hasn't abated. There haven't been too many accidents and the reaction on the streets is pretty amazing if you like making people crack a smile. Aaron and some of the new staff at Grin made a nice video from an afternoon spin:

Anyways it turns out that there are a couple dozen more replica high wheel bikes from this source in a storage locker looking for a home, and we wonder if there is a case to sell them electrified with small hubs in the rear wheel. The bikes are available in wheel sizes ranging from 36" to 54", and they have a custom machined freewheeling front hub so you can coast without pedaling. If owning a piece of 19th century bike technology merged with 21st century electronics like this tickles your fancy, then send us an email and we'll see if there's enough interest to convert a batch! Price would depend on the specific conversion options but can expected between $1500-$2000.

October 30, 2017 12:50:00 PM PDT

It's high time to formally introduce our Battery Grinspector, a device that converts a Version 2 Cycle Analyst into a full computer controlled battery test station. Here is a nice video that Bruno made while we had a prototype to show at the Taipei Cycle Show earlier this year:

This is our first foray into products aimed at shops and businesses that have to maintain and service electric bicycles rather than to ebike end users. As more and more ebike shops open up, there's an increasing need for ebike specific diagnostic and repair tools. We hope it finds a small but growing audience!

A little background

Over the years we've built all kinds of custom battery discharge testing rigs for the troubleshooting, QC, and R&D needs of our operation. But each has been very much a one-off project, rather than something designed with the idea that we could manufacture it as a product. The one on the left is Justin's very first battery charge/discharge machine built for conditioning and testing salvaged NiMH batteries for his first ebike project at university, while on the right was a comprehensive labview controlled solution that would cycle test 8 packs at a time.

Commercial equipment available on the market for testing batteries tends to be bulky and expensive, made for laboratory or industrial use and wholly out of place in a bike shop. As a result, we noticed many of our dealers have setup simple improvised rigs using a Cycle Analyst and load resistor to do a simple battery capacity test.

The Grinspector station builds on this concept, allowing allowing shops to use their familiar Cycle Analyst while a computer is able to control the charging and discharging of the battery, with real time discharge graphs as well as a final printable QC report. Everytime someone purchases a battery from us, they get a printout of the battery discharge curve showing actual capacity and other test data. That's our own bank of Grinspectors at work, and we hope to empower other shops to do the same.

October 5, 2017 10:24:31 AM PDT

Over the last few months we've quietly slipped a number of other small improvements to our website. For instance, from the spoke calculator page you can now directly add spokes to your cart from the calculator, no need to write down lengths and navigate back to the online store.

Similarly, when you are shopping for the conversion kits, the simulator link on the bottom will launch the motor simulator page with the correct motor, controller, wheel size etc. already pre-selected.

And if you have individual motors, controllers, batteries etc. in your shopping cart, then you can launch a local instance of the simulator tool from inside the cart to see exactly the performance of these items and how they work together.

Much of this work and the associated tools for motor thermal analysis was possible with the help of our summer software coop students from SFU and UBC; Stefan, Gary, and Adam. It's long overdue we gave them a big public thanks for their fine contributions.

August 4, 2017 11:30:00 PM PDT

One of the common sources of fitting issues with conversion kits is interference between the throttle and existing lever shifters on the bike. We have two new throttle options that help things on this front. The T-Lever throttle fits equally well on both the left and right side of the handlebar for maximum install flexibility and is ~2mm smaller in diameter than our previous thumb throttles. And the T-HTwist_Slim throttle is a split grip throttle with an impressive 36 mm max diameter (vs 45-50mm with other common models), allowing it to replace almost any right side grip without concern for shift lever interference. It has a standard handlebar grip diameter right to the end.

We've similarly upgraded our basic mechanical ebrake option to a sturdier model with a longer black lever arm and rubber grip in the front. Both this and our previous silver model are all metal construction, but the new black one is better suited to the quality standards that we'd like associated with our offerings. Our remaining stock of the previous model of ebrakes and throttles are available for sale on our new sale/clearance page.

August 1, 2017 12:07:42 AM PDT

We've spent 10 years of determined effort keeping all of our kits, controllers, and motors interchangeable and standardized around the same 3-pin Anderson and 5-pin JST hall connectors, but we're moving on! At this point, most manfufacturers of small ebike motors have adopted the overmolded 9-pin Higo Z910A plug as a default connector type, and rather than always cutting this off and replacing with andersons we've decided to roll with it and make our smaller 20A Grinfineon Controllers directly compatible.

The extra 6th signal wire is used in geared motor setups for an internal wheel speed sensor that is present in many geared hubs, allowing you to get vehicle speed info from a simple CA-DP device rather than needing a separate speedometer sensor and spoke magnet with the CA-DPS. In our small direct drive motors, we've used this 6th wire for the internal motor temperature sensor that is brought out of the controller assembly, so that you can still take advantage of the CA3's temperature sensing and thermal rollback, all with just a single connector and wire to the motor.

There are downsides to an overmolded plug. You can't measure hall sensor voltages for troubleshooting when it is plugged in, swap phase wires around, or separate the halls from the phase wires to run it sensorless. And replacing damaged connectors is not easy. But for low to medium power ebikes the benefits of this clean single plug are worth it. We have all of our Bafang G01 and Brompton SAW20 motor kits in stock now using this Z910A plug style. And in unusual form, we even finished the user manuals in time for this announcement too.

June 6, 2017 1:57:54 PM PDT

Well we managed to have the most crashes in one ride during the cargo bike championships last friday; tip for future events, 2 wheels is better than 3 for fast cornering! Anyways this coming weekend is also packed with with activity, and that includes Grin having a booth both at the inaugural Main Street Bike Expo on Saturday June 10th, and also both Saturday and Sunday at the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire.

At the main street bike expo we'll have a good sampling of converted cargo ebikes, converted Bike Friday and Brompton folders, and some more typical converted commuters on display as well. If you want to learn about retrofits firsthand from us and also check out many other players in the local Vancouver cycling scene all under one roof then this is an event not to miss. It is happeng at the Ellis building on Main St. from 11am - 6pm.

Secondly, as is traditional for our Maker Faire presence we've built yet another version of our weight sensing electric longboard. This one is very close to hitting all the marks for an electric skateboard conversion kit using our hands free lean control, including suspension trucks and a ruggedized miniature deck mounted CA. If you want a taste ride on this board in an event full of other creative DIY projects then get your Maker Faire tickets now.

May 30, 2017 9:33:34 PM PDT

After missing the beat last year we're back to being involved with now the 3rd annual Vancouver Cargo Bike championship this Friday. It's happening once again at the end of Bike to Work Week at Creekside park, only this year there's a dedicated track so less dodging of pedestrians around the seawall bike path.

It's not too late to register and we'll be sponsoring a prize of a $150 (or 15% off an order) gift certificate for anything at Grin to a winner in the e-cargo category. We hope to see many of our customers there and if you've been considering a cargo ebike yourself this would be a great event to check out. We'll be racing our legendary Frankentrike and as always we have a fondness for the homemade and wacky.

May 27, 2017 5:12:12 PM PDT

We've been able to add the powerful Magura MT4e hydraulic brake system to our offering of ebike kit accessories. This provides amazing hydraulic stopping power when you need it, with a built-in switch on the lever arm to activate regen or controller cutout.

If you already have hydraulic brakes then the TripWire is a great way to add electric cutoffs to your existing levers. But for those looking to upgrade their ebike from mechanical brakes to hydraulic or building up a new conversion from scratch, these Magura's are among the best.

The brake levers are a symmetric flip-flop design so the same lever works equally well on the left or right handlebar, and come fully bled with 2200mm long hoses. Magura has designed them so that you can then cut the hose to length without the complicated bleeding step if you follow their instructions (See Video Here). The hardware for cutting the hose to length is included with each kit.

We've got them stocked with 180mm disk rotors and various frame caliper adapters to fit this rotor size. For the electrical termination you can choose between a 15cm cable with 2-pin HiGo plug or a longer cable with JST-SM connectors for setups running a V3 Cycle Analyst.

May 18, 2017 3:40:08 PM PDT

Ebike parts tend to be lag the standards used in the modern bike industry by several years but we do our best to move things forwards. Recently the 650b aka 27.5" wheel size has largely replaced 26" as the standard for new mountain bikes, but hub motors in 650b rims have been nearly impossible to find.

We've addressed this and now have our front and rear eZee kits available in a prebuilt 27.5" option with a Schwalbe Big Ben tire. We also have stock of both Alex DM24 and and Velocity Cliffhanger rims. We can now offer a 27.5" size for the 9C+ kits, Bafang G01 kits, TDCM IGH kits, and other custom wheel builds. This addition will ensure that Grin has a drop-in hub motor option for all the newer bikes out there.

May 8, 2017 4:10:21 PM PDT

We're new stepping closer to the full release of the V3.1 Cycle Analyst firmware and are smoothing the upgrade process. The Cycle Analyst software suite has been updated to contain the latest 3.1b20 firmware. This latest build is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac. And if you are missing the USB->TTL programming cable, we have that now available on the amazon store too, along along with the digital aux buttons.

Earlier this year we produced a video showcasing the new digital aux input buttons, and have now prepared 4 more short youtube videos highlighting some of the other new features available in the 3.1 firmware, from screen customization to factory resets. Have a look

Youtube video showing the ability to customize what item(s) show up in the main screen.

March 14, 2017 7:12:23 PM PDT

At last Xtracycle has released the long awaited follow up of their FreeRadical bolt on cargo extenion kit, now called the Xtracycle Leap. It's a full redesign that is cleaner, more rugged, and more versatile than the original, with accomdation for 24" - 29" wheel sizes and a greatly improved frame attachment system.

We've got them in stock both stand alone and as part of a full electric package with a rear geared or direct drive hub motor. And to celebrate their arrival, and cargo ebikes in general, we're having a month long sales event on most of our cargo packages to kick start the season! This includes:

To use the coupon codes, you'll need to be logged into our website with an account and then you will have the opportunity to put in the code during checkout. This sale will last until April 15th.

Plus, for local Vancouver customers are selling our floor model Yuba Mundo and 2014 Edgerunner ebikes, both with Cycle Stoker drive systems installed. So if you've been mulling over a cargo ebike purchase for a while but have been a bit leary of the prices, now is the time to drop by our shop for a visit.

March 2, 2017 12:27:26 PM PST

We're used to travelling all around to various trade shows and events but it's been a while since we've had one in our own backyard. This coming weekend Grin will have a booth in the Vancouver Bike Show at the Vancouver Convention Center downtown.

Not only will we be showing off some of the great new Grin products like the LiGo batteries, All Axle hub motor, Tripwire brake cutoffs, Satiators and Phaserunners, and all that, but we're also running a sale on cargo ebikes, including 25% off on brand new eZee Expedirs. There will be floor models to try and both Bike Friday and Brompton folding bike kits built up as well.

If you are into the Bike and/or Outdoor scene in Vancouver, there is a lot going on at the Convention center this weekend so we recommend you register and come for a visit. Our booth is B300 near the Bike Trials Show.

UPDATE: Our first day at the VBS has been really great and we look forwards to meeting many more local Vancouverites on Sunday. There is lots to see and we have some show specials to offer those who visit so it.our little booth.